Keagan Pang's Profile

Thanks for the interesting read. I believe one unforeseen consequence of adopting additive manufacturing in shoe production is that inventory management will become more complex but potentially more efficient. Ever been to a store to try on shoes but couldn’t find your size? If we get to a point where shoes can be 3D-printed and assembled in the store, then that scenario will never play out. In addition, retail shops can run leaner on inventory because production is more decentralized, located either in-store or at a production facility that services the region nearby. I for one, am looking forward to on-demand footwear!

Thanks for the interesting read. I love the idea of creating avenues of dialog and the exchange of ideas. While there is certainly no lack of societal issues that we face, I think the million dollar question remains – which of these are the most important? I believe open innovation can be used to not just raise issues but to prioritize and solve them as well. IDEO can be an active facilitator in on this OI forum, imparting their skills in design thinking to the communities involved.

Thanks for the interesting read. I believe there will be an upper limit on the types of parts that can be manufactured by AM in aviation in the medium term. Some parts used in aviation have to be precision engineered to adhere to very strict technical tolerances. There is also a limitation on the type of materials that can used in AM. I would imagine stretched-skin type designs that we see in aircraft today will feature some sort of heat-resistance coating (titanium alloy?). Any part failures could have catastrophic consequences. Thus, I think the industry will forward cautiously with adopting AM for may of the key aircraft parts.

Thanks for the interesting read. I think the question of whether to bring the OI competition winners in-house or not depends very much on how qualified they are on the implementation of the project. Some people are great at ideas, others at execution. It might take a visionary to design a novel solution to the hyperloop problem, but it takes a careful engineer to build it. As for continuing to host OI competitions – I don’t see why not. I think there’s little downside to doing it.

Thanks for the interesting read. I believe machine learning holds tremendous potential in platform/marketplace products such as Airbnb. Perhaps with a large enough training set based on a user’s historical hosting/renting activity, a machine learning algorithm will be able to make house recommendations much more accurately than what the site is able to do currently. I do however, foresee a problem with using historical data to predict a user’s preferences. There is an element of novelty in travelling overseas to experience a new city. Some users might have a better experience if they stay in an apartment that is outside of their usual pattern of preferences.

Thanks for a great read. I foresee that if Spotify sells their user’s listening data to third parties, there will be a huge PR blowback. What people listen to are often a personal reflection of their tastes and sometimes a reflection of their identity. Users will certainly not take kindly to having bits of their personal lives auctioned off to the highest bidder. That being said, I think there is value in making aggregated data available to guide artists in creating music that is well-received.

Thanks for the great read. I wholeheartedly agree that Soundcloud should invest in a better music recommendation feature. There are just so many hidden gems out there. With regards to network effects, perhaps Soundcloud could move away from the boring middle to gain a smaller but stronger following in niche markets. For example, many bedroom DJs used to host their mixes on SC before mixcloud came along. Indie electronic music producers are also another category that warrants some attention. For many of these independent creatives, Soundcloud remains one of the best avenues to share their work with the world.

Thanks for the great read. I wonder how 3D-printed chocolate tastes. Probably tastes like the future. In all seriousness, I think it’s a great green field project. It’s novel and makes for a fantastic marketing headline. I do however, have doubts over the practicality of 3D printing chocolate. Intricate designs are great to look at but don’t do much for taste and overall chocolate eating experience. Good old fashioned chocolate bars on the other hand, are nice and compact, perfect for shipping across the world. In any case, Willy Wonka would be proud.

Thanks for the interesting read. I guess it’s hard to say what’s cooking with the Cognitive Coaching System at present. For the better of humanity (and my physique), I hope under armor figures out a way to help us all work out more efficiently. I do have some doubts over the quality of data the company can collect from its users. Perhaps they can use caloric data from My Fitness Pal, step counters/heart rate monitors on smartphones and watches, rep/set count apps etc. But some of these are notoriously inaccurate (eg. myfitnesspal) because they are self-reported. In any case, maybe some guidance from the machines is better than none.

Thanks for the great read. I love how Spotify uses machine learning to cut out the middle man – record labels. By empowering artists with analytics and a platform to share their music, the artists themselves have more creative control over the music that they produce, resulting in a more authentic representation of their work.

I believe machine learning will have a greater impact on electronic dance music than on other genres. While a machine might be able to be trained on the logic behind what makes music sound good, the musical output is still very much limited by its ability to actually produce an analog sound (eg. guitar strings, percussion etc.) Other than in EDM, current attempts at re-creating analog sounds have been relatively unsuccessful. At best, the machine might be able to use samples cut from existing bits of music (eg. breakbeats).

Thanks for the great read. I believe 3D printing will have a huge impact on the inventory management of shoes. Being able to print shoes on demand at the store or in a nearby facility will greatly reduce the instances of shoe sizes/models being out-of-stock. Stores will also be able to run on lower inventory, allowing for more space to be dedicated to retail display.

Perhaps one solution to preventing counterfeiting is to control the raw material itself. I would imagine Adidas uses some sort of proprietary blend of plastics to achieve its desired structural performance in the shoes. Retaining control over this raw material stock would prevent counterfeiters from reproducing their work in any realistic way, even if they somehow gain access to the blueprints.

I love the idea of crowdsourcing innovation from a pool of dedicated customers. At the very heart of Design Thinking is to empathize with the end-users to truly understand their pain points and hence, unmet needs. By involving Xiaomi fans in the innovation process, the end product is far more congruent than any other product that could be dreamed up in a vacuum without user input. I think a salient question here is whether Xiaomi is able to keep up with the Mi fans’ collective imagination!